Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of t | Page 8

by
the airline that some of his evidence might be taken to reflect on
Captain Gemmell (the Flight Manager, Technical, and former Chief
Pilot) so First Officer Rhodes was recalled as a witness by counsel for
the airline. He said that he had 'no reason to doubt Captain Gemmell in
any way shape or form'. There was some cross-examination by counsel
for the association but no reference was made to Captain Eden in any of
the questions. The Commissioner said in paragraph 348 of his report:
348. Captain Eden is at present the director of flight operations for the
airline. He appeared in the witness box to be a strong-minded and
aggressive official. It seemed clear from this further production of First
Officer Rhodes as a witness that it had been suggested to him by
Captain Eden that he should either make a direct allegation against
Captain Gemmell or else make no allegation at all, and that since First
Officer Rhodes seemed to have no direct evidence in his possession, he
was therefore obliged to give the answer which Captain Eden had either
suggested or directed. However, First Officer Rhodes was not entirely
intimidated because as will be observed from the evidence just quoted,
he insisted on saying that Captain Gemmell had brought an envelope

containing documents back to Auckland.
Exception is taken to that paragraph as making findings of intimidation
against Captain Eden without any such allegation ever having been put
to him. Captain Eden gave evidence later in the inquiry than First
Officer Rhodes and the transcript shows that he was asked nothing by
anyone about their discussion.
Captain Gemmell
The following paragraphs of the report are attacked for their references
to this senior officer:
352. As to the ring-binder notebook, it had been returned to Mrs
Collins by an employee of the airline, but all the pages of the notebook
were missing. Captain Gemmell was asked about this in evidence. He
suggested that, the pages might have been removed because they had
been damaged by kerosene. However, the ring-binder notebook itself,
which was produced at the hearing, was entirely undamaged.
353. After the evidence given before the Commission had concluded, I
gave some thought to the matters just mentioned. I knew that the
responsibility for recovering all property on the crash site lay
exclusively with the New Zealand Police Force, and that they had
grid-searched the entire site. All property recovered had been placed in
a large store at McMurdo Base, which was padlocked, and access to the
shed was only possible through a senior sergeant of Police. I asked
counsel assisting the Commission to make inquiries about the flight
bags which had been located on the site but which had not been
returned to Mrs Collins or Mrs Cassin.
354. The Royal New Zealand Air Force helicopter pilot who flew the
property from the crash site to McMurdo remembered either one or two
crew flight bags being placed aboard his helicopter, and he said that
they were then flown by him to McMurdo. This was independently
confirmed by the loadmaster of the helicopter, who recollected seeing
the flight bags. The senior sergeant of Police in charge of the McMurdo
store was spoken to, and he recollected either one or two flight bags
among other property awaiting packing for return to New Zealand. He
said that personnel from Air New Zealand had access to the store, as
well as the chief inspector, and the senior sergeant said that he thought
that he had given the flight bags to the chief inspector and that the chief
inspector was the sole person to whom he had released any property.

The chief inspector was then interviewed on 11 December 1980 by
telephone, being at that time in Australia, but he said that no flight bags
were ever handed to him. ...
359. The following facts seemed to emerge:
(1) The two flight bags were lodged in the Police store at McMurdo
and would have been returned in due course to Mrs Collins and Mrs
Cassin by the Police. But they were taken away from the store by
someone and have not since been seen. ...
These paragraphs followed a discussion by the Commissioner of a
submission by counsel for the Pilots Association that a number of
documents which would have tended to support the proposition that
Captain Collins had relied upon the incorrect co-ordinates had not been
located; and in that context the Commissioner recorded Captain
Gemmell's denial that he had recovered any documents relevant to the
flight which had not been handed over to the chief inspector. There was
also a reference shortly afterwards in the report to Captain Gemmell
having brought back some quantity of documents with him from
Antarctica. On its own this would be innocuous, but it is